Books like 'The Dark Spell'
Readers who enjoyed The Dark Spell by Susan McNally also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
mystery action / adventure horror family dark gothic
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The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.52 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsThe internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author returns to the magnificent universe he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven in this riveting series finale—a heart-pounding thriller and nail-biting work of suspense which introduces a sexy, seductive new heroine whose investigation shines a light on the dark... -
The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsMara Dyer knows she isn't crazy. She knows that she can kill with her mind, and that Noah can heal with his. Mara also knows that somehow, Jude is not a hallucination. He is alive. Unfortunately, convincing her family and doctors that she's not unstable and doesn't need to be hospitalised isn't easy. The only person who actually believes her is Noah... -
Call of Cthulhu: Horror Roleplaying by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsCALL OF CTHULHU is Chaosium's classic roleplaying game of Lovecraftian horror in which ordinary people are confronted by the terrifying and alien forces of the Cthulhu Mythos. CALL OF CTHULHU uses Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System, easy to learn and quick to play. This bestseller has won dozens of game-industry awards and is a member of the Academy of Adventure Game Design Hall of Fame... -
Goodnight Lady by Martina Cole
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA tour-de-force thriller of corruption and violence.In the sixties, Briony Cavanagh ran a string of the most notorious brothels in London. Only Briony knew what went on behind those doors, and she never opened her mouth - unless she stood to benefit. Only Briony knew the painful road she'd travelled to get there... -
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Ashes to Ashes by Karina Halle
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsIt’s been two months since Perry Palomino and Dex Foray’s relationship reached a new turning point, two months since Perry started a new life in Seattle, and two months since their Experiment in Terror show took on a new partner, ex-Wine Babe Rebecca Sims, and found a new level of success. But whenever there is light in their lives, the madness still has a way of coming back in... -
Cardinal Black by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsCardinal Black is the latest installment in Robert McCammon's unique series of historical thrillers featuring Matthew Corbett, professional problem solver, who has been called "the Early American James Bond." December 1703 finds Berry Grigsby living as Mary Lynn Nash in a small English village where she has fallen victim to Professor Fell's involuntary drug experiments... -
The Master's Apprentice: A Retelling of the Faust Legend by Oliver Pötzsch
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA young man’s destined quest becomes a dance with the devil in a mesmerizing retelling of the Faust legend by the bestselling author of the Hangman’s Daughter Tales series.It’s the fifteenth century and only heretics are curious about the universe.Germany, 1494. Born under a rare alignment of the stars, Johann Georg Gerlach, “the lucky one” to his mother—is fated for greatness... -
Vicious Little Darling: A Dark Stalker Romance by Teresa Wolf
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsI’ve killed more women than I can count. But this one is different.I always start by stalking them. I follow them home, break into their rooms… like a predator ambushing unsuspecting prey. The thrill of the hunt makes me feel alive.But Ember isn’t scared of me. She’s a fighter… and when I break into her room in the dead of night, she relishes every touch... -
Red Rain by R.S. Black
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsRed Rain Pandora has been through hell and back. Literally. She’s been kidnapped and tortured, found freedom, and then lost it all over again. She’s now the newest pawn in the age-old war between Heaven and Hell. The Triad owns her mark, Asher owns her heart, but the demon Wrath might just own her soul. Death—aka Dean—is her constant companion in these final days... -
Love and War: Volume Two by Charisse Spiers
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsI’d waited my whole life for this. Nothing and no one was going to stand in my way. From the moment Lux opened her mouth that night I wanted to be pissed at her, but with one outburst she’d given me everything I’d fucking dreamed of since I was a kid. He gave me the chance of a lifetime, despite his known reputation of sitting alone on his throne... -
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBarcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past... -
Shadows in the Water by Kory M. Shrum
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMeet Louie Thorne. They didn't kill her — and they'll soon regret it.When DEA agent Jack Thorne's house is stormed by vengeful drug lords, both he and his wife are shot dead. Only his daughter Louie survives — by using a terrifying power that defies reason.Piecing together a life in his absence, Louie embraces her gift and her rage under the force of a single need: revenge... -
Soulstice by Simon Holt
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsBeware the darkness and the light.They will steal your soul in day or night.In summer's warmth or winter's coldYour life will end when the Vours take hold.In the fearscape no one can hear you cry,And in its depth your soul will die.Reggie Halloway thought she was finished with the Vours - the demons who had possessed her brother, Henry - forever... -
Finest Hour by Arthur T. Bradley
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFinest Hour is the sixth book in Dr. Bradley's Survivalist series. It features seven full-page illustrations. (Series Order: Frontier Justice, Anarchy Rising, Judgment Day, Madness Rules, Battle Lines, Finest Hour, and Last Stand)... -
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Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos by Jim Turner, H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHoward Phillips Lovecraft forever changed the face of horror, fantasy, and science fiction with a remarkable series of stories as influential as the works of Poe, Tolkien, and Edgar Rice Burroughs... -
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsTwin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.This is the story of what happened first…Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline... -
The Heir of Death by Becca Andre
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsElysia Mallory has never embraced her magic, not when doing so comes at the price of her sanity. Her family is cursed with bizarre necromantic gifts that have driven each recipient mad, and she doesn’t want to be another dead branch on the family tree... -
Whispers in the Dark by Laurel Hightower
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRose McFarland is a trained killer--a Memphis S.W.A.T. sniper with a secret. Her team knows about the burn scars that lurk under her clothes, a legacy of the house fire that killed her father and brother sixteen years before. Her supervisors know that she spent two years in a rehabilitative facility, healing and learning to cope with the emotional trauma of the fire... -
The Blind Dragon: A Tale from the Canon of Tarn by Peter Fane
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"There we are," Anna whispered. The dragon foal went still at her voice. Then it snorted and swiveled its snout towards her. Its eyes were still shut. Its tail quivered and its nostrils flared. A menacing growl rose from its chest. "Easy there," Anna said gently. "Easy." She placed her palm on its forehead, applying calm pressure between its eyes... -
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 85 ratingsNobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead... -
Long Lost by Jacqueline West
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEleven-year-old Fiona has just read a book that doesn’t exist. When Fiona’s family moves to be closer to her older sister’s figure skating club—and far from Fiona’s close-knit group of friends—nobody seems to notice Fiona’s unhappiness. Alone and out of place, Fiona ventures to the town’s library, a rambling mansion donated to the town by the long-dead heiress... -
Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsBryony and her sisters have come down in the world. Their merchant father died trying to reclaim his fortune and left them to eke out a living in a village far from their home in the city. But when Bryony is caught in a snowstorm and takes refuge in an abandoned manor, she stumbles into a house full of dark enchantments... -
The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsDiana and her little brother Georgie have been living in the woods behind the old Willis place, a decaying Victorian mansion, for what already seems like forever. They aren’t allowed to leave the property or show themselves to anyone... -
The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 52 ratingsDear Reader,I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe... -
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Nod's Limbs by Charles Ogden
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCan the twins solve six mad riddles to find Nod's long-lost gold? It's all-out war with the Knightleigh family, and Edgar and Ellen are rapidly losing ground... -
Orlind by Charlotte E. English
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOrlind. Locked behind impassable mountains, buried under the weight of a vast - and terrible - history, the Seventh Realm has remained a mystery all the long ages through.Until now.For the Lokant sorcerers' power and might grows by the day - and all their thought is bent upon Orlind... -
Spiderstalk by D. Nathan Hilliard
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLife hasn't been kind to Adam Sellars lately... In the past year he has broken up with his fiancee, barely survived a terrible car wreck, and had his brother's family vanish while he lay unconscious in the hospital. All they left behind was a frantic call on his cell phone's voice messages, and a blurry photo of a spider... -
There's Something Out There by P.J. Night
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn overnight campout sets the stage for a monstrous scare in this You’re Invited to a Creepover tale.Jenna Walker has always been fascinated by the legend of the Marked Monster, the scarred half-bird, half-beast creature that is said to roam the forests around her hometown... -
The Haunting of the Midwife by James Hunt
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Riveting Haunted House MysteryWhen the Maples family arrives in the small mountain town of Roster, Colorado, they’re convinced it will be the perfect place to raise their newborn daughter. But their dream home turns into a living nightmare when an otherworldly power abducts their child... -
The Perfect Cover by Charlotte Byrd
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Tyler McDermott escapes from prison, he takes me hostage.No, I do not fall in love with my captor.Tyler is an innocent man who was framed for a heinous double murder.Of course, I do not know that yet.All that I know is that he has a knife to my throat. All that I know is that if I want to live, I have to let him in... -
The Killing of Faith: This is a suspense/thriller you won't soon forget. by William Holms, Ginny Glass
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe Killing of Faith is the riveting suspense/thriller told by Faith, a mother of three children, caught in an unhappy marriage full of lies, deception and affairs. After swearing off love, she finally meets the man of her dreams. He seems perfect, wins her over, and makes her believe in love again... -
#NoEscape (Volume 3) by Gretchen McNeil
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe #murder and mayhem continue in this prequel companion novel to the grisly, campy social media insanity that is #MurderTrending and #MurderFunding. Gretchen McNeil brings her signature wit and merciless kills to this gruesome yet hilarious, wildly topical young adult novel.Twenty years before Dee Guerra and the Death Row Breakfast Club took down The Postman and Alcatraz 2... -
Tales of Terror from the Black Ship by Chris Priestley, David Roberts
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA follow up to Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, this is another creepy middle grade story collection with a chilling frame. This time, the stories are all tales of the sea: pirates and plagues and storms a plenty.. -
The Thornthwaite Inheritance by Gareth P. Jones
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOvid and Lorelli Thornthwaite have been trying to kill each other for so long that neither twin can remember which act of attempted murder came first. But whoever struck first, trying to take each other's lives is simply what they do... -
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House of Shadows by Darcy Coates
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsSophie's world is shattered when disaster bankrupts her family. She's still reeling from the news when she's offered an unexpected solution: Mr Argenton, a wealthy stranger, asks for her hand in marriage... -
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama... -
The City of Mist: Stories by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsReturn to the mythical Barcelona library known as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in this posthumous collection of stories from the New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow of the Wind and The Labyrinth of the Spirits... -
The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBy chance, John and Jean--one English, the other French--meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared... -
The Weirdies by Michael Buckley, Kate Winslet
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is a very, very sad story. The characters suffer terrible tragedies. People die in unspeakable ways. Only a truly horrible person would be amused by their misfortune.Nevertheless, it is kind of funny.My advice is that you listen to this all by yourself. People can be judgy... -
The Beast of Noor by Janet Lee Carey
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsLate one night, piercing screams awake the villages of Noor. And the next day the bones of a young woman are found deep in the surrounding forests. Terror courses through the hearts of the villagers, along with something else...relief. An attack such as this is not uncommon in Noor... -
The Secret of Cypriere Bayou by Jana Deleon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA MANSION OF HORRORS DEEP IN THE LOUISIANA BAYOUS...For Olivia Markham, laMalediction is the ideal setting in which to complete her work. But something is sending a chill up the usually fearless author's spine. There are the unearthly noises, the sliding panels, the hidden passageways...and John Landry, the sexy caretaker who seems less than welcoming... -
Lokant by Charlotte E. English
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOnce naught but a legend, the fearsome draykoni have returned to the Seven Realms.For Llandry Sanfaer, their coming changes everything - forever. Their story and hers are inextricably bound, and there'll be no going back.For Lady Eva Glostrum, questions abound. Who are the enigmatic sorcerers who woke the slumbering draykoni? Their powers break the bounds of possibility... -
Conjugal Rites by Paul Magrs
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe gripping new instalment of the adventures of Brenda and Effie.No matter what she tries to do, trouble has a way of finding Brenda. It's hardly surprising with secrets like hers. When her old adversary Mr Danby starts filling the airwaves with his late night phone in show it can only mean one thing - and sure enough best friend Effie soon finds herself up to her neck in it... -
Little Camp of Horrors by R.L. Stine
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis summer Max is going to Camp Snake Lake—where he will have to swim in a lake filled with poisonous snakes . . . where a Headless Ghost roams the fields . . . where he and his mostly ghostly friends Nicky and Tara will continue the dangerous search for Nicky and Tara’s parents. But first Max will have to face the evil spirit Phears again... -
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Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor fans of Caraval and The Night Circus, this decadent and darkly enchanting YA fantasy, set against the backdrop of a Belle Époque-inspired hotel, follows seventeen-year-old Jani as she uncovers the deeply disturbing secrets of the legendary Hotel Magnifique. All her life, Jani has dreamed of Elsewhere... -
The Broken Heavens by Kameron Hurley
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe bloodsoaked concluding volume of Kameron Hurley’s epic fantasy, the Worldbreaker Saga, is unleashed.The Dhai nation has broken apart under the onslaught of the Tai Kao, invaders from a parallel world... -
Breathe: A Ghost Story by Cliff McNish
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJack is not a normal boy. He can talk to ghosts. In his new home, an aging farmhouse, he meets the Ghost Mother, a grief-stricken spirit who becomes very attached to him...too attached. He learns that the Ghost Mother is preying in the cruelest imaginable way on four child ghosts who are trapped in the house, stealing their energy to sustain her own... -
The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Jame's Prunier
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis award-winning collection of adapted classic literature and original stories develops reading skills for low-beginning through advanced students. Accessible language and carefully controlled vocabulary build students' reading confidence. Introductions at the beginning of each story, illustrations throughout, and glossaries help build comprehension... -
Peppermints in the Parlor by Barbara Brooks Wallace
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEmily Luccock is looking forward to living at Sugar Hill Hall...She remembers her aunt and uncle's grand old mansion well. But this time things are different. Her aunt's once bright and lively home is now dead with silence. Evil lurks in every corner and the dark, shadowed walls watch and whisper late at night. Emily is desperate to uncover the truth about what is happening at Sugar Hill Hall... -
A Land So Wide by Erin A. Craig
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of House of Roots and Ruin, comes an irresistible blend of dark fairytale and romantic fantasy set in the beautiful but brutal Canadian wilderness.Like everyone else in the settlement of Mistaken, Greer Mackenzie is trapped...
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